What will I eat if I don’t eat bread and cereal and pasta?
How about the 20min-Faster-than-a-frozen-pizza ITALIAN STEW?
I keep all these things in my freezer/cupboard at all times. One stop Paleo meal shopping at Trader Joe’s.
2 packages of basil chicken sausage (chop it up and start sauteeing it). Chop a bag of frozen green beans and a bag of frozen asparagus (they snap in pieces easily when they are frozen). Open a can of ripe black olives and if you feel like it, slice them, otherwise you can leave them whole. Open a can or two of artichoke hearts packed in water and pull them apart into pieces. Once your chicken sausage is beginning to brown, add everything, a can of crushed tomatoes and about 2-3c of water. I usually throw in some Italian dried herbs (I keep an Italian seasoning blend on hand) like basil, oregano, thyme. If you need some more fat drizzle on some olive oil at then end over your bowl.
Let’s see what the dudes at CrossFit Football have going…
Paleo Snack for The Power Athlete – Canned Salmon, Avocado, Olive Oil, Tomato and Red Onion
I have been sparing you all a constant repeated discussion of eating paleo on this blog, but I think it is time for a reminder. I still have a sense that most of you think changing your diet is only if you really need to lose weight or get super leaned out. I’ve heard in the background chatter (I have alien ears when it comes to picking up all discussions of nutrition) that some of you feel like cutting out grains is only if you want to lose weight. There is even this strange notion out there that some people “adapt” to eating grains and if you “feel fine” then you should keep eating them. Thanks to a heads-up from the enormously strong, super fit, excellently intelligent coaches at CrossFit Football I read a nice article by Dr. Mark Hyman on gluten. How about you all read some of it too? I pasted an excerpt from the article here or you can click on “The Dangers of Gluten” subtitle and see the whole thing.
A recent large study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people with diagnosed, undiagnosed, and “latent” celiac disease or gluten sensitivity had a higher risk of death, mostly from heart disease and cancer. (i)
This study looked at almost 30,00 patients from 1969 to 2008 and examined deaths in three groups: Those with full-blown celiac disease, those with inflammation of their intestine but not full-blown celiac disease, and those with latent celiac disease or gluten sensitivity (elevated gluten antibodies but negative intestinal biopsy).
The findings were dramatic. There was a 39 percent increased risk of death in those with celiac disease, 72 percent increased risk in those with gut inflammation related to gluten, and 35 percent increased risk in those with gluten sensitivity but no celiac disease.
This is ground-breaking research that proves you don’t have to have full-blown celiac disease with a positive intestinal biopsy (which is what conventional thinking tells us) to have serious health problems and complications–even death–from eating gluten.
Yet an estimated 99 percent of people who have a problem with eating gluten don’t even know it. They ascribe their ill health or symptoms to something else–not gluten sensitivity, which is 100 percent curable.
And here’s some more shocking news …
Another study comparing the blood of 10,000 people from 50 years ago to 10,000 people today found that the incidences of full-blown celiac disease increased by 400 percent (elevated TTG antibodies) during that time period. (ii) If we saw a 400 percent increase in heart disease or cancer, this would be headline news. But we hear almost nothing about this. I will explain why I think that increase has occurred in a moment. First, let’s explore the economic cost of this hidden epidemic.
Undiagnosed gluten problems cost the American healthcare system oodles of money. Dr. Peter Green, Professor of Clinical Medicine for the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University studied all 10 million subscribers to CIGNA and found those who were correctly diagnosed with celiac disease used fewer medical services and reduced their healthcare costs by more than 30 perecnt. (iii) The problem is that only one percent of those with the problem were actually diagnosed. That means 99 percent are walking around suffering without knowing it, costing the healthcare system millions of dollars.
And it’s not just a few who suffer, but millions. Far more people have gluten sensitivity than you think–especially those who are chronically ill. The most serious form of allergy to gluten, celiac disease, affects one in 100 people, or three million Americans, most of who don’t know they have it. But milder forms of gluten sensitivity are even more common and may affect up to one-third of the American population.
Why haven’t you heard much about this?
Well, actually you have, but you just don’t realize it. Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity masquerade as dozens and dozens of other diseases with different names.
Gluten Sensitivity: One Cause, Many Diseases
A review paper in The New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 “diseases” that can be caused by eating gluten. (iv) These include osteoporosis, irritable bowel disease, inflammatory bowel disease, anemia, cancer, fatigue, canker sores, (v) and rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and almost all other autoimmune diseases. Gluten is also linked to many psychiatric (vi) and neurological diseases, including anxiety, depression, (vii) schizophrenia, (viii) dementia, (ix)migraines, epilepsy, and neuropathy (nerve damage). (x) It has also been linked to autism.(ix)
We used to think that gluten problems or celiac disease were confined to children who had diarrhea, weight loss, and failure to thrive. Now we know you can be old, fat, and constipated and still have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity.
Gluten sensitivity is actually an autoimmune disease that creates inflammation throughout the body, with wide-ranging effects across all organ systems including your brain, heart, joints, digestive tract, and more. It can be the single cause behind many different “diseases.” To correct these diseases, you need to treat the cause–which is often gluten sensitivity–not just the symptoms.
What about the people who do feel fine and are eating gluten? Is it understood that they are going to develope problems? I have completely stopped eating grains myself, even drinking beer, which was very hard and I feel a hundred times better for it. Part of my enthusiasm is sharing my new info with others and people do usually say that they feel fine so it is fine for them to eat that stuff. Thank you for sharing with us Jen and I, for one could use the reminders about eating paleo.
thanks Jen, I enjoy reading all your nutrition info. The hardest part is dealing with family who complain of ailments and aren’t willing to make the changes. No, it’s not that I don’t want bread because “I’m on a diet.” It’s because I feel healthier without it. I wish they would just “get it.”
Ellie, I’m trying to think up a person I know whose health is perfect. Ask them what it means to “feel fine”. Then just observe. Do they get headaches? are they super energetic, do they train, do they have a sunny disposition, are they patient parents, do they have perfect digestion? do they have perfect skin? do they have knees that make it impossible to run? Are they stressed? If they are very very young sometimes the robustness of youth can mask things. But I just require a lot of convincing before I believe someone doesn’t have symptoms of gluten-eating!
Hey Jen, I saw this quote and it made me think of you… “If you don’t train in the kitchen, don’t bother showing up to your workout”
I used to love eating pasta, especially my own hand-made, made from that lovely yellow semolina flour. But I trust that what Jen and other nutritionists are finding out about wheat and grains in general has important implications for health and longevity. First, I want to be a friend to myself, as Aristotle advised, so I must choose. What fuel for this human furnace? That Italian stew recipe looks delicious. Thanks Jen! Thanks for raising nutritional issues and for providing useful information. And thanks for your leadership. And did I mention, my gluten-free kips are back!
Jen- When you put it that way it is abundantly clear what it means to be having effects from gluten. It is usually that they are convinced gluten is not their problem because they don’t have the same problems I had. And part of the problem is that I am not the best example. I do the best I can and make tiny baby steps forward (like eating chocolate too often, but at least I don’t eat grains kind of rationale) but I have so far left to go.
Hey Jen, do you know this site?
http://members.shaw.ca/ron_hoggan//
I hadn’t seen that site, but Dr. Braly, one of the authors of that book has written quite a lot on the topic. He has good things to say. Have to put that one on the reading list.